Two Against Nature
by reconnoiterer
Summary: Two of the surviving S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team members struggle with the hours immediately following the Spencer Mansion incident. Chris/Jill-ish.


At this juncture in his life Chris Redfield was unsure of a lot of things; however, he was certain that he had never felt more exhausted in his life. He could feel it in every cell right through to his bone marrow – a kind of painfulness of living that manifested in a dull, continuous ache. He was sitting slouched in the hard wooden chair in front of his desk at work, gravity pinning him in place. He was free to leave at any time, to answer the siren song of his unmade bed, he just wasn't sure he had the energy to get that far. Sitting down had been a mistake – it had killed the inertial force that had kept him running for hours.

"Hey Redfield, you okay?"

Chris swung his head over to look at Jill Valentine hovering beside his chair, her beret somehow still in place. Dark circles under her eyes made their colour pop in the fluorescent lighting.

"Been better. You?" His tongue felt like a slab of dead meat someone had shoved in his mouth and stapled in place. Jill shrugged a reply.

"C'mon, you can crash at my place tonight…today I suppose – we can walk it from here," she offered, dumping her epaulettes on her desk. Normally he would refuse; he knew where Jill lived and his apartment was only a few blocks farther, but after the night they'd lived through he didn't think much would ever feel _normal_ again. Those few blocks may as well be a few thousand miles as far as his body was concerned.

"Thanks," he said, pulling himself up and stripping out of his vest, the white shirt underneath stuck to his body with sweat. Consciously or otherwise, both knew it was as much of an excuse not to go home to an empty apartment as it was a matter of convenience. Finding it was easier with every movement, Chris worked off his knee-pads and refastened his knife holster. There was no way he was ever leaving the house unarmed for any reason at any point within the next fifty years.

The day was just getting hot as they walked out of the Raccoon City police station, but it was a warmth that Chris didn't feel beyond the first layer of his skin. Jill lived a few blocks away and the houses passed by in the silence and doldrums of a small mid-western town at midmorning. Although he had only been there a handful of times, the walk up to her fourth floor apartment had never felt more drudging.

Jill kept her apartment the way Chris wished he could keep his. Everything was neat and organized, but still lived in and welcoming. A drawing from one of her nieces was stuck to the fridge with a magnet along with a telephone bill and a coupon for twenty percent off non-fat yogurt. Her keys clattered onto the kitchen counter, her boots hitting the floor with a thud a few seconds later. Chris followed suit, hoping nothing too offensive smelling would appear at the ends of his ankles out of his beat-up combats. Jill pulled the blinds and closed the curtains, blanketing the apartment in a darkness that was impressive considering the hour of the day.

"You hungry at all?" she asked as he finally eased his feet, not reeking too badly he was pleased to note, out of their confines. Chris shook his head, he had officially been turned off of both meat and plant material for the next foreseeable future.

"I'll just pass out on the couch if that's alright with you."

"It's all yours," she gestured with a hand, looking decidedly _un_domestic in her S.T.A.R.S. gear and beret, her pants rumpled from where they'd been tucked into her boots. "I'm going to hit the shower for a while." He saw a shudder run down her neck at the thought of what kind of grime she was covered in.

Chris heard her pad away on the carpet and close the bathroom door as he eased himself down onto her couch – much more inviting than his office chair. He was too tall to lay out properly, so he rested his feet up on the coffee table, leaning his head back comfortably against the cushions, arms folded across his stomach. The butt of his gun underneath his fingers and the press of his knife holster against his forearm were a comfort to him as he tried to drift off, the sound of water running providing just the right amount of white noise in the background. As long as he didn't think of anyone he knew, anything that had just happened to him, or especially anything that was _going_ to happen to him, it should be easy enough to get some sleep.

Exhaustion started to creep back into him in full force, his muscles and joints supremely grateful for the padding underneath them as they loosened. His breathing slowed and deepened, his eyes too impossibly heavy to keep open. Chris could feel himself on the blissful edge of sleep when a jangling klaxon erupted from somewhere near by.

His knife was in his hand before his eyes opened, but there was no one else in the room – no monsters, no comrades come back to life, no backstabbing Captains, no self destruct system… just Jill's phone ringing on the end table beside the arm of the couch. Chris let out a long, low, profane groan and pressed his hand over his eyes, waiting for the asshole on the other end to hang up. It seemed to ring endlessly, to the point where Chris thought the sound would be permanently burned into his skull, finally stopping in a sudden void of sound. The sigh of relief never made it past his lips as it started all over again.

Never a man of patience, Chris pulled himself out of the gravity vortex of the couch and headed for the bathroom. He knocked once lightly on the door, then again more loudly when there was no reply.

"Chris?" came Jill's voice over a downpour of water and a cycling fan.

"Hey Jill, you're phone's ringing off the hook out here," he said into the doorjamb.

"What? I can't hear you." Chris started to reply again but she cut him off, still unable to understand over the rush of water "it's open."

Chris opened the door enough to stick his head through and found himself face to face with Jill in the cramped bathroom.

Face to face with a naked, steaming, slippery Jill Valentine covered only by the blue vinyl of her shower curtain. All the sluggish semi-coagulated blood in his system immediately headed south.

"Uh…your phone's ringing," he said lamely, hoping she wouldn't notice him noticing her.

She did.

The sexual tension in the air was as thick as the humidity, heightened by the desperation of the past few hours. Jill did something out of character and reached out an arm to grab the collar of Chris' shirt pulling him closer until her hot, wet lips slid against his. It was something she had thought of doing since the first day he'd sat down at the desk next to hers with his boy-next-door good looks and dangerous, easy, smile.

Chris didn't need a second invitation, cupping her face in both his hands, the shower curtain slipping away, letting some of that sweet, damp, perfect flesh press against him. They kissed with wide, open mouths, holding nothing back – after last night, what was the point? Her fingers pulled his shirt over his head and unfastened his pants, leaving him almost as naked as she was in a very short period of time. He kicked off his socks, peeling them off with his toes, and stepped into the shower with her. The first moment was spent in observation, taking in the simultaneous perfection and carnage of the other's body.

Jill had the most perfect set of tits Chris had ever seen, creamy and slightly flushed from the steam. Her legs were a mass of bluish purple from a trip during their initial flight to the mansion, among other events. Chris had the kind of hard, not too defined muscles Jill had always imagined that he would, not that she would ever admit to imagining those kinds of things. A large swirl of dark colour on his ribs noted where he'd misjudged a certain shackled monstrosity while aiding his _former_ Captain. The wreckage and what it represented in their lives effectively killed the majority of the sexual urgency, but none of the intimacy. Jill reached out to lightly touch the mottled bruising on his ribs and Chris pulled her tightly against his chest, turning so he was under the spray of water, a fall that ran down him over her.

The sensation of rivulets of water cascading down over his aching body was a heaven made even more divine by the soft curves pressed against him. Chris lifted his head and let the water pour over his face and into his ears, the rush of it helping to drown out the moans of the undead that still echoed off the inside of his skull. His world shrunk to the size of the shower in the bathroom of a single bedroom apartment.

Jill rested her head against his chest, hearing the steady beat of his heart under her ear. She hadn't ever been the type of woman to need a male presence in order to feel safe in her own home – especially not with her sidearm no more than an arm's length away – but the security of Chris' embrace made her feel _lighter_ somehow. She wished she could pretend this was the only place that existed, could dream about this instead of the dank, reeking cell she knew her subconscious was waiting to pounce on. She pulled away slightly, just enough to bring her arms up around his neck and look him in the eye.

"Chris," she said, and he brought his head down, opening his eyes. He looked younger than his years with his hair matted down on his forehead. Water had collected on his eyelashes making them dark and defined. "Thank you for coming back for me – I'd still be there if it weren't for you."

He brushed an errant lock of wet hair away from her forehead, his hand stroking along her cheek as its partner held its position wrapped around her waist. "I'll always come back for you. I promise."

Jill traced her fingertips lightly over his jaw, a light stubble rough against the pads. "I just can't believe that nobody else is ever coming back." A thousand images of fallen comrades flashed through each of their minds in the space of a heartbeat.

"They're not going to get away with this" Chris said tucking her back against his chest and resting his chin on her crown. The fingers of his right hand threaded through her left over his heart. He thought he could feel her shaking, but he wasn't confident enough that it wasn't himself to comment.

Eventually the water ran cold and Jill reached behind him to turn off the flow. Fabric-softener scented towels appeared from a cupboard and were wrapped around wet bodies. Jill led the way into the bedroom and they both climbed under the covers still half damp. Chris kept a respectful distance on the other side of the bed, not wanting to push any boundaries now that the world had expanded back to its normal size. His hunting knife found a home underneath his pillow; her semi-automatic on the nightstand.

"Hey, Chris?" Jill asked after a moment, staring up at the ugly stucco ceiling. When he didn't reply she turned her head towards him and found him sound asleep, facing her with his brow furrowed against some kind of internally fabricated problem. Jill turned onto her side to face him and closed her eyes, letting the soft in and out of his breathing lull her to into what she could only hope would be a dark, dreamless sleep.


End file.
